Se7en Affiliates

Se7en + 1 Are Welcoming Wildlife into the Hedge…

It has been wet, wet, wet and almost every time we have plotted and planned a natural factual outing… a trip to the nature reserve – cancelled due to a wild storm; a walk up the mountain with our watercolours – put on hold because of torrential rain… I know the last little bit of lingering winter is always the worst… but we decided it was time to create a way to enjoy the great outdoors from indoors… in fact from the the kitchen counter!!!

We don’t have a very big garden at all, but we do have this path up the side of the house. Nothing really grows there at all and it is shady most of every day.

Boring as it looks, this is a hedge full of all sorts of little birds. As the days get longer so the twittering in the hedge begins earlier and earlier. White eyes, sugar birds, weaver birds and so on like to visit our hedge, which is sheltered from the wind.

This is often our first stop in the day to see if we can spot any visitors from the kitchen window. We thought it would be nice to make the birds and in fact any other teeny tiny visitors more welcome…

Se7en + 1 Ideas to Welcome Wildlife in to the Hedge…

A Bug Hotel: This seemed like a good place to start… we collected all sorts of materials that would be appropriate for bugs to enjoy: Bamboo, hollowed out sticks; corn leaves; grass and sticks and a couple of seed pods.

We used some upturned broken plant pots in a sheltered part of the hedge…

We popped all the materials into cut off plastic bottles and containers… we placed these under the plant pots, pointing slightly downwards so that the contents of the containers remain dry even in the rain.

A Spider Tree: We do get a lot of spider webs dripping in the mornings so we planted a very spiky branch into the ground to see if we could invite some spiders to our nature corner.

Butterflies and Bees: A dash of honey and some bright flowers were placed there to see of we could attract butterflies or bees. It has been very cold an we weren’t expecting to see anything before it warmed up… but we have spotted butterflies there already.

A Fabulous Feast: We began by making seed cookies. Melt a block of cooking fat and then add enough bird seed to make a stiff mixture.

Mix it up well… making sure that all the seeds are coated in the fat…

Pour your mixture into small tubs and at this stage it is really easy to poke a stick into your mixture to create a hole through your creation…

The melted fat will set hard and you will have a bird feeder ready to hang in a tree or just poke onto an exposed branch.

We have such an array of little birds in our hedge and so we are trying out a variety of chopped fruit and fruity bites as well as the seed cakes… Not to mention a few bugs… nothing like seeing the Food Chain in action. And we will wait to see what the birds prefer to nibble on.

Bedding for the Birds: We saved a fruit bag and filled it with some very soft fabric scraps, stuffing and wool scraps…

A Bird House: We filled an old and collapsed watering can with sticks and leaves… just in case a little bird would like to make a home there…

A Bath: For the birds… a little feast and some bedding and a bath… we are hoping to see some splishing and splashing…

And the Se7en + 1th Thing…

Observation: At this stage all that is left for us to do is to watch our wildlife from the warmth of our kitchen. Already someone has been inspired enough to start creating observation cards… but I think that may be a entire ‘nother blog post!!!

And our first guests have started to arrive…

Meanwhile the view from our kitchen window is vastly improved…

And we are so looking forward to spotting little visitors right outside our window…

Hay Christi… It was a really easy project that literally took minutes to assemble, we started collecting things a few days before and then popped it all together… I am sure it will become an ongoing project here, because we keep thinking of new things we could add to it!!! Hope you have a good week!!!

Oh tcmullinax, your comment made me laugh out loud!!! I have a sister, who is incredibly creative and I am always lamenting her incredible ability to turn junk into some than more than just a little aesthetically pleasing!!! So it was really funny to hear your comment about our nature corner/pile of junk!!! The embarrassing thing is that I had all this junk lying on my kitchen counter for weeks, no months… just waiting for the right moment for inspiration to hit!!! So keep on collecting your junk – you never know you too could produce great works of art in the future – remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that!!! Hope you have a great week and thanks for the fab comment!!!

Waw!What a great stuff you have made! Your animals are very happy indeed :).
I had wrote you an e mail(is that mail working?!), because i was worried that something happened, because i did not recived your posts. But maybe is just something wrong with computer recive it?! I see your posts in a pack…like 6 in the row.
But anyway, i am glad that you are ok and busy!
We have welcomed four snails last night in our home during preparation of a salad :)…and they all have their names Enjoy the season!Greetings from Slovenia